The Ricky Gervais Show is a humorous audio show in the U.K. starring Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant, and Karl Pilkington. The show started in November 2001 on Xfm, and aired in weekly periods for months at a time throughout 2002, 2003, 2004, and mid-2005. In November 2005, the Positive Internet Company hosted the show on behalf of The Guardian as a podcast as a series of 12 shows. Throughout January and February 2006, the podcast was consistently ranked the number one podcast in the world; it may appear in the 2007 Guinness World Record for the world's most downloaded podcast, having gained an average of 261,670 downloads per episode during its first month.

Karl: And when I was out last Sunday, right, at Johnny's birthday party--

Ricky: Yeah.

Karl: Steve was there--

Ricky: Yeah.

Karl: Got talkin' about stuff. Ehm, and a debate... that we didn't really finish... cropped up.

Steve: It blew your mind, didn't it?

Karl: Amazing.

Ricky: Oh, I know about this. Steve told me. This is the, uh, infinite amount of monkeys, uhm, or a monkey with a typewriter and an infinite amount of time would eventually come up with the works of Shakespeare.

Karl: Yeh.

Ricky: There was no debate. It's a philosophical, mathematical problem. There's no debate. It's true.

Karl: It wouldn't happen.

Ricky: No, listen Karl, listen. Infinity sorts it all out for ya... right. An infinite amount of monkeys at a typewriter, right- they would do- they would do everything. They'd type everything. Infinity just sorts it all out for ya. There's no gettin' to it and they're going, "Oh, well, let's have a look what they've done. This one's come close - he has 'Romeo and Juliop".

[Steve Laughs Slightly]

Ricky: It would do it all. It would type everything ever possible, conceivable. It--

Karl: Well, f- first of all, right, you're saying it's a load of monkeys, it's not just one monkey that's- that can live forever.

Ricky: It depends. It- no, no, no, wait, wait... It's either a- a chimpanzee with a typewriter with an infinite amount of time, he would eventually, by definition, mathematically, type everything ever possible, okay, or it's an infinite amount of m- uhm, uh, chimps with typewriters and one of them will type it first time.

Karl: But already that's- that's, sort of... That's not right. You either need to have one--

Ricky: What do you mean?

Karl: Monkey--

Ricky: What- what- l-l- employment laws?

Steve: Let- let's hear his point.

Ricky: What do you mean, "it's not right"?!

Steve: Let's hear him out. Please.

Ricky: Okay.

Karl: If it's one monkey--

Ricky: Yeah.

Karl: With a typewriter that's got loads of ink in it and that, right, at least it knows what it's done in the past...

Ricky: Don't- it's not--

Steve: Keep going!

Ricky: Chri--

Karl: If you got a load of monkeys- it's like- it's like if you have too many- what's that saying about "too many chefs spoil the--"

Ricky: "Too many chimps spoil the soup."

Karl: Right, well it's the same thing. It's like, "Well I didn't tell ya to put salt in it. I was gonna put salt in it." and it messes it up. Whereas if it's just one, they know what's gone on. So what I'm saying is--

Ricky: I- I- I- I--

Steve: Just leave him go.

Ricky: I can't be bothered, Steve--

Steve: I want to hear- I want to hear the rest.

Ricky: I- i- this blows my mind. He doesn't know what this does to me. It's a mathematical problem--

Steve: I want to hear the rest.

Karl: Well, it's just- I just don't think it will happen.

Ricky: What do you mean you don't think it would happen? Infinity works it out for ya. By definition!

Karl: Well, what's stopping them typing the same thing again?

Ricky: They would. They'd- in fact, the problem should be, if you have an infinite amount, uh, uh, of time that, um, it would type the works of Shakespeare an infinite amount of times and everything else an infinite amount of times. But, you know, that's not- that's just- that's- that's not as--

Karl: But not... not Shakespeare.

Ricky: OHHHHHHH! SHUT UP, YOU IDIOT!

Steve: You know- Rick, do you know what he said to me? I said to him, uh- I explained it to him, I said--

Ricky: God!

Steve: "You've got an infinite number of monkeys, infinite number of typewriters, they will type the complete works of Shakespeare."

Ricky: Yeah.

Steve: He said, "Have they read Shakespeare?"

[Ricky Laughs]

Ricky: YOU'RE AN IDIOT! Play a record because I'm not having this conversation.

Steve: I said, "No, they're not doing it from memory--"

Ricky: I'm not havin' it because it (Slapping the Desk) really, really winds me up.

Karl: But you're saying they'll do it with no spelling errors?

Ricky: Wh- they'll do it a- a- they'll do it an infinite amount of times. And they'll do it- they'll do it wrong an infinite amount of times. And they'll do it- and they'll spell, uhh, the last full stop, uhh, wrong an infinite amount of times and they'll do it- and they'll get one thing wrong in "Hamlet" wrong an infinite amount of times. They'll do everything an infinite amount of times.

Stephen: Reconstructions of an accident, like tripping over a paving slab, one particularly chilling one of guy who's with his kid watching football. He's thinking, "Wish I could join in". There's a flashback of him up a ladder, on a very shiny surface, with no one supporting it, frankly.

Ricky: Oh, no. He's just asking for trouble

Stephen: Frankly, I blame him.

Ricky: Yeah

Stephen: The ladder topples for no reason, wind lets say, whenever I see it...

Ricky: I hope he never walks again.

Stephen: He falls off it, erm...

Ricky: Did he smash his face in? ...

[Stephen laughs]

...did he fall on a spike? Because if he's gonna go up that ladder on a shiny surface, with no one holding it, right? Did he fall... did he crack... did he fall backwards on his head? The little f...

[Claire Sturgess laughs]

Stephen: Worse still, Gervais.

Ricky: Did he do the splits and crush his nuts? The f...

Stephen: Worse... than that...

Ricky: Go on.

Stephen: He made a considerable lump sum of cash. Thanks to...

Ricky: Aarrrgh... God. Oooh, no!

Stephen: Right? His negligence has...

Ricky: Hold on, Steve. Was there a yokel with a pitch-fork looking up as he fell on it?

Stephen: Nothing.

Ricky: Oooh, for f...

[Claire Sturgess laughs]

Stephen: I think he must have bruised his ankle, or...

Ricky: Oh, that's not enough, that hasn't taught him anything!

Stephen: It hasn't taught him a lesson, if anything, it's taught him to be more foolhardy in the future. 'Cause if you're gonna give out 5...3...5 grand, willy-nilly, to these... people... these lunatics... these oafs... these simpletons...

Stephen: We were talking there about homosexual people, and I'm sure we'll move on to other topics. Erm, but I'll just mention, I was talking to a friend of mine in the week. And he overheard, er, you know, you piece together, sometimes if you overhear a conversation you can piece together what they're talking about?

Ricky: Yeah

Stephen: And, erm, it sort of transpired from what he could make out, that one gay guy had just realised, or just found out, that his gay boyfriend had, er, maybe been having an affair. And was on the phone, erm, and had called this person, the third party...

Ricky: The other one was crying, wasn't he?

Stephen: The other one was crying, in tears. Obviously they had just had a big argument about it. And all he heard, on the phone, was the guy saying, in very kind of earnest tones, "I'm gonna do everything in my power to destroy you"...

Stephen: We get e-mails all the time, they're coming through... a lot of 'em, everybody's contributing, it's brilliant. But we can't absorb everything, there's too much coming through. So, I tend to open them quickly, I have a look to see if there's anything we can sort of, make sense of and... sometimes Karl looks at the e-mails as I'm opening them. One opened just a minute ago... did you... you saw his face?

Ricky: Yeah, what was it?

Stephen: His face was just stunned, absolutely dumbfounded...

Ricky: Yeah, what was it?

Stephen: It was like he'd just seen something extraordinary, right?

Ricky: And you closed it quickly...

Stephen: I did close it quickly, I'll tell you why. Always gotta bear in mind how Karl's mind works, er... all he saw... was the name of the band... that this e-mail was promoting...

Ricky: Right...

Stephen: ...so all he saw, all Karl saw... imagine how excited he was... "Half-man, Half-biscuit"